ZBrushCentral

Sneak peek #1 of ZBrush 4R2

ZBrush Announcements
#101

IMHO, the status in which Zbrush is now comes form the fact it is an artist’s tool, originally conceived for 2.5D illustration, but being adopted widely from 3D artists once Pixologic implemented sculpting into a fantastic way, which actually changed even traditional 3D workflows. They changed the 3D world forever despite not programming a real 3D app. :slight_smile:

So, the main fact is: Zbrush doesn’t builds up onto traditional tools used in 3D production. It is not that kinda app. It has its own tools wich make similar things into a different way.
When dealing with production, its clear that a strictly 3D artist, needs a coherent workflow, so there are 2 ways to deal with this.

  1. having an app which addresses exactly all their needs, mostly coming from traditional 3D tools and workflow.
  2. working around the fact the artist oriented app works following it’s own way and workflows.

bugs when dealing with provided features, useful for 3d artists, for example smooth UVs or layers, or other known bugs into the current toolset are surely to be fixed. But it’s nonsense to claim for rendering being enhanced or lightbox not being a perfect tool.

I am sure that ZB will provide new exciting tools in the near future, as there are interesting technologies out there to be implemented, ( sculptris dynamic tesselation, or also voxels, anyone? also i agree onto vector displacement) and current tools to be further enhanced for a better experience. Retopo is there but can be enhanced. :slight_smile:

But, since the app is both an artist oriented tool with its own philosophy and a useful app for 3D artists, forcely using traditional 3D apps and workflows for their workflow, it isn’t easy to find the correct balance between those 2 souls. :slight_smile:

#102

Looks cool, I think – honestly I’m not sure what features you’re showing off here. Not sure I understand what you’re getting at with ‘lightcap’ … is it basically a second layer of environment mapping that gets applied across all subtools? Excited to see more about the next version of course.

Does 32 bit bpr pipeline mean that materials/textures can now have an actual alpha channel for blending? hope I mean, HDR can be mimicked with three exposure renders and a photoshop wizard – alpha blending can’t…

To echo a few of the other voices in here, I’m hoping for texturing/painting bugfixes and improvements. ZB is so close here to being perfect! Bug: polypaint layers don’t mix correctly. Feature hopes: Blending modes between polypaint layers, and direct texture painting! Oh, and a dodge paint mode.

#103

WUHUUUUUUU… NOW I’M EAGERLY WAITING FOR THIS UPDATE VER… PIXOLOGIC ROCKS!!! :+1: :wink:

#104

I hope that they made some better ReToPology tools and maybe fixed that issue with the transparency. please please. can’t we have some ReToPology tools that rival those of 3d coat. can they be stable and not so troublesome? give us tools give us hope! can we start seeing vector displacement? will we have real-time tessellation sculpting? will we get a leveling brush that will take the lumps out of hard surface (Leveling might take in the average of a stroke and remove bumps). some stability with our spotlight when using larger textures. we need these updates please please!

CAN WE HAVE THESE THINGS PLEASE?

#105

I couldnt care less for BPR… knowing that those renders took probably a dozen passes to make… lol

What i need is working 3dlayers/ polypaint. Fix the brush cavity automasking…

And the most important thing EVER!!!

ARE YOU ATLEAST WORK ON A 64 BIT version ???

#106

yes and I did mention improving the re topology in my bourbon fueled rant, it’s a huge issue. The fact that 3D coat users can retopo in less than 10 minutes should be a wake up call to Pixologic. i often retopo my models all the time regardless of their intended use and it its annoying (just like UV mapping) but my rant was largely targeted towards those that seem to think ZBrush has a single purpose. Now let me get back to my hang over…

I think Nemoid’s latest response was really excellent.

#107

Yes, 64 BIT please!!!

#108

+1 robotball, and +1 for the bourbon (I really mean this, same here :slight_smile: )

I strongly believe in a after retopo detailed sculpting, a fast 2-3 min autoretopo just to help sculpting flow. Retopo for animation is a different case and we’re alone on this.
Insisting on this magic autoretopo feature as some more eastern eggs are coming from pixo, very soon. :wink:

#109

sweeeet:+1:

#110

Pixologic rocks :cool:

#111

This is an absolutely stunning breakthrough for ZB. !!!
Again, what planet are you guys from…

#112

I was racing up the highway on that Pixologic bike right until I realised I was on a futuristic green motorbike, and then I crashed into some trees. Who can I sue? I prefer blue motorbikes when I crash.

Love the preview. Hope you never stop doing them. LightCap looks like it could solve all my problems I have using just MatCap’ed materials. Wonderful. Thank you in advance :+1:

Btw, I like how robotball thinks.

#113

I’d be happy to pay for an upgrade just to get back the things that were already part of Zbrush that no longer work properly or at all. If Zbrush never added a single new feature I would have no complaints.

“But its a free upgrade!” means little to me if it also means, as a customer, my input doesn’t matter and I’m expected to accept what is offered and feel like an ingrate if I complain…because its “FREEEEEE”. I can’t even go back to version 3.5 because its unsupported. Despite the added bells and whistles added to version 4.0 (which are an entertaining distraction, I admit) for my purposes the earlier versions’ features served me better. I lost it from my system when I had to reinstall after a crash. If upgrading to Zbrush was something you had to purchase, then like other programs, the earlier version would still be supported. And I would have supported the company by purchasing the upgrade (I always do this), but I would have had the option of using an earlier version. I would like this better then any mesmerizing shiny baubles dangling infront of me in the form of even more new “crashy” features.

#114

I like lightcaps, which I think are a simple technique to use image based lighting as we can see in videogames or mudbox. Something like baking the environment in a cubemap which always aims to the light position.

But I agree with some people when they say to better streamline the modeling pipeline.

What I would like to see more, are some fixes:

  • Freehand stroke. After 3.5 using clay brush without lazy brush has become impossible. I hate it, as it doesn’t feel natural and sexy as before.
  • Smooth UV button in the geometry panel (with the ability to convert/rebuild easily from linear to smooth and viceversa)

and some requests:

  • Multiple options when baking displacement maps,expecially for the way UVs are smoothed (maya and renderman for example have different kinds of smoothed UVs)
  • PTex and better layering as suggested before

I think that maybe for a R2, PTex are too much (even if I think they probably will be there), but I really really really hope to see the first two points fixed.

#115

It’s pretty entertaining seeing the reactions of individuals who have zero clue whatsoever as to how to light anything in CG let alone the lack of technical knowledge to even understand the buttons they will soon be clicking in hopes of getting good renders out of zb…

#116

I’d really like a way to save render settings in it’s own file like you can with light settings. I don’t know if there is currently a work around for this, but a straightforward method would be nice.

#117

I’d agree with the general tone of this thread - free updates are really appreciated but even so my workflow is still held back by the scaling issues that come with using GoZ. Its true that Zbrush is used for different purposes so these are the issues that affect me as someone really still learning to make game-ready models and models for 3D printing:

  1. Efficient retopology tools would be truly amazing - I am on the verge of getting 3Dcoat just for this.

  2. I’m a novice with rendering but I’m not anywhere near convinced with those giant robot lightcap examples. Perhaps I’m not getting the point here but to me those robots dont blend in with the background image at all.

  3. Overall I have to say I find Zbrush’s interface confusing - this isnt because I’m more used to another program, in fact I started on Zbrush. Rather it is often down to the naming of things and their placement eg. MatCAPS being applied to individual tools but lightCAPS being applied to the whole scene? The terminology would confuse me. Similarly the use of zspheres for modelling and ALSO rigging took some time to get used too, because to me as an inexperienced learner I couldnt tell when a zsphere was a modelling zsphere and when it was a rigging zsphere. Its almost like Pixologic are trying to conflate features that have little to do with each other technically and this is supposed to make things more intuitive but in reality it just muddies the water. Like if you have oil paints and water colours mixed up in a bag - there are lots of potential options there but if they arent laid out neatly its hard to see whats going on. I guess this is an adolescent phase between having a techy (control) modelling tool and having an artsy (intuitive) modelling tool.

#118

Am I one of only a few who know of a Topogun? It has so many features. Especially with 2.0. Retopologize asymmetrical meshes etc

I love zbrush but a cheap tool like topogun fills all my retopology needs.

#119

I’d like to see more focus on things like retopology and painting too, but personally I see no reason to give Pixologic flak over things like the names of matcaps and lightcaps or zbrush’s UI (which I continue to like the more I use it). Even in standard 3d applications there’s generally a difference between materials (which only affect the models they are applied to) and lights (which affect the entire scene). Nor do zspheres seem confusing when you understand that what they are is why they have multiple uses.

#120

Nice!!! It makes Z-brush self sufficient. This is the whole reason that I bought Z-Brush in the first place. Ask and you shall receive. It has always been the case with these guys. Always improving and developing the software based on what the people want. Pretty cool!!! Thanks Guys!!!